Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-10-05

men gettlng Splend1Qly thrOugh. Iney Sf
others going up and themselves goin
down, but they keep their patience, an
their courage, and their Christian consi
tency, and after while their turn of SUI
cess will come. The owners of the bi
business will die and their boys will ge
possession of the business, and with ciga
in their mouth, and full to the chin wit
the best liquor, and behind a pair of spank
ing bays they will pass everything on tn
turnpike road to temporal and eternal per
dition. Then the business will break up
and the smaller dealers will have fair or
portunity. Or the spirit of contentmen
and right feeling will take possession O
the large firm, as recently in the case o
| the great house of A. A. Low & Co., AM
the firm illsay eve have enough none.
for all our needs, and the needs of ou
children now let us dissolve business ant
make way for other men in the same line.
Instead of being startled at solitary in
stance of magnanimity, as in the case JUS
mentioned, it will become common thing
| know Of scores of great business houses
that have had their opportunity of vast &C
cumulation, and who ought to quit. Bu
perhaps for all the days Of this generation
the struggle Of small houses to keep alive
under the over-shadowing pressure of great
houses will continue therefore, taking
things as they are, you will be wise to pre-
serve your equilibrium, and your honesty,
and your faith, and throw over all the
counters, and shelves, and barrels, and
hogsheads, and cotton bales, and rice casks,
the measuring line of divine right. 'sAnd
the Lord said unto me. Amos, what seest
thou? and ! said, plumb line."
In the same way we need to measure ouI
theologies. All sorts of religions are put
ting forth their pretensions. Some have a
spiritualistic religion, and their chief work
is with ghosts, and others religion of po-
litical economy proposing to put an end to
human misery by a new style OF taxation,
and there is humanitarian religion that
looks after the body of men and let's the
soul look after itself, and there is legisla-
tive religion that proposes to rectify all
wrongs by enactment of better laws, and
there is an aesthetic religion that by rules of
exquisite taste would lift the heart out OF
its deformities, and religions of all sorts,
religions by the peck, religions by the
square foot, and religions by the ton-all of
them devices of the devil that would take
the heart away from the only religion that
will ever effect anything for the human
race, and that is the neutrality-suspicious.
religion written in the book, which begins
with Genesis and ends with Revelation, the
religion of the skies, the old religion, the
God-given religion, the everlasting religion,
which says, Glove God above all and your
neighbor as yourself" All religions but
the one begin at the wrong end and in the
wrong place. The Bible religion demands
that we first get right with God. 1t begins
at the top and measures down, while the
other religions begin at the bottom and try
to measure up. They stand at the foot of
the wall, up to their knees in the mud of
human theory and speculation, and have a
plummet and string tied fast to it. And
they throw the plummet this way, and
break head there, and throw the plum
met another way, and break a head there,
and then they throw it up, and it comes
down upon their own pate. Fools Why
will you stand at the foot of the wall
measuring up when you ought to stand at
the top measuring downe A few days ago
l was in the country thirsty after long
walk. And came in, and my child was
blowing soap bubbles, and they rolled out
of the cup, blue, and gold, and green, and
sparkling, and beautiful, and orbicular, and
in so small space never saw more splen-
dor concentrated. But she blew once too
often and all the glory vanished into suds.
Then I turned and took a glass of plain
water, and was refreshed. And SO far as
soul thirst is concerned, put against all
the glowing, glittering soap-bubbles of
worldly reform and human speculation,
one draught from the fountain from under
the throne of God, clear as crystal. Glory
be to God for the religion that drops from
above, not coming up from beneath Sand
the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest
thou? and said, plumb line."
want you to notice this fact, that when
a man gives up the straight up-and-down
religion in the Bible for any new tangled
religion, it is generally to suit his sins.-
You first hear of his charge of religion,
and then you hear of some swindle he has
practiced in Colorado mining stock, telling
some one if he will put in ten thousand dol
lars he can take out hundred thousand, or
he has sacrificed his chastity, or plunged
into irremediable worldliness. His sins are
so broad he has to broaden his religion,
and he becomes as broad as temptation, as
broad as the souls darkness, as broad as
hell. They want a religion that will allow
them to keep their sins, and then at death
say to them: ''Well done. good and faith
lul SorVduty duu Ilitt toila bucn AL Is
we'll for there is no hell" What a glori-
Gus heaven they hold before us Come, let
us 90 in and see it. There is Herod and all
the babies he massacred. There is Charles
Guiteau, and Jim Fiske, and Robespierre,
the friend of the French guillotine, and all
the liars, thieves, house-burners, garroters,
pick pockets and libertines of all the CEN
turies. They have all got crowns, and
thrones, and harps, and sceptres, and when
they chant they sing "Thanksgiving, and
honor, and glory, and power to the Broad
Religion that let us all into heaven without
repentance and faith in those disgraceful
dogmas of ecclesiastical old-fogyism %
My text gives me grand opportunity oi
saying useful word to all young men who
are now forming habits for a lifetime. Oh
what use to a stone-mason or a bricklaye1
is plumb line? Why not build the wall
by the unaided eye and hands Because they
are insufficient, because if there be deflec
tion in the wall it cannot further on be
corrected. Because by the law of gravita
tion q wall must be straight in order to be
symmetrical and safe. A young man is in
danger Of getting a defect in his wall o.
character that may never be corrected. One
of the best friends / ever had died of deli
rum tremens at sixty years of age, though
he had not since twenty-one years of age
before which be had been dissipated-
touched intoxicating liquor until that par
ticular carousal that took him off. MOI
feeling we'll in a street on a hot summer
day, be stepped into drugstore, just az
you and l would have done, and asked fol
dose of something to make him feel bet
ter. And there was alcohol in the dose
and that one drop aroused the old appetite,
and be entered the first liquor store, anG
stayed until thoroughly under the power Of
rum. He entered his home raving maniac,
his wife and daughters fleeing from his
presence, until he was taken to the city
hospital to die. The combustible material
of early habit had lain quiet nearly forty
years, and that one spark ignited the con.
flagration. Remember that the wall may
be one hundred feet high, and yet a 6eflec.
ton one foot from the foundation affects
the entire structure. And if you live a
hundred years and do right the last eighty
years, you may nevertheless do something
at twenty years of age that will damage al
your earthly existence. All you who have
built houses for yourselves or for others,
am not right in saying to these young
men, you cannot build a house SO high az
to be independent of the character of its
foundation? A man before thirty years O.
m q r, oo,,, opo,,oh o;r lcct L..